Patna: Suggesting Bihar ministers rectify their system before making any allegations against the Centre, former Bihar deputy chief minister and BJP Rajya Sabha Member Sushil Kumar Modi on Monday alleged that the finance minister of the state Vijay Kumar Chaudhary was making false statements for not getting fund from the Centre in the pension scheme.
Modi said here that Chaudhary was making statements against the Centre for the past 2 days without cross-checking the facts.
He said that the Centre has released Rs 329 crore under the old age, widow and disabled pension scheme, but the finance minister of the state had stated that Bihar had not received funds under the said schemes.
The BJP MP said that soon after Bihar deposited the interest amount in the central fund on August 23, Rs 329 crore was released within 1 week. He said that had the state deposited the fund in April-May the centre would have released the fund earlier.
Ridiculing the allegations labelled by Bihar leaders upon the centre of being discriminatory, Modi said that after Uttar Pradesh the maximum 37 lakh 57 thousand beneficiaries were from Bihar for whom the centre was providing annual assistance of Rs 1300 crore to the state.
The former Deputy Chief Minister said that the state governments were providing pensions to 23 lakh additional beneficiaries of BJP-ruled Haryana, 40 lakh in Uttar Pradesh, 14 lakh in Gujarat, and 17 lakh in Assam from its budget and the union government has no role in it.
He said that most the state governments spend Rs.500 to Rs.1,000 per beneficiary as state share whereas Bihar bears only Rs.200-300.
